Sant in state of panic

This year's budget was hedged in between the adjustment to the energy prices and the announced laying off of the Denim workers. So it was only natural that reaction to its provisions was coloured by these two events. Yet all constituted bodies, except for the GWU, welcomed it for its focused determination, vision, dynamic ideas, definite taming of the deficit and for its measures in favour of economic growth.

Naturally, Alfred Sant, in his defensive denial mode, sees everything as blacker than black. We now know him only too well. When statistics point to bad economic news, he quotes them as proof of his doom and gloom portrayal of the state of the country. When the figures look good, then he not only questions them but alleges that they are cooked.

A friend told me that when the Labour leader questions statistics, he takes it as a sign that there is good news for the economy and for the government. Another remarked that some people use numbers and statistics like a drunkard uses a lamp post. More for support rather than for illumination.

In his feeble reply to the budget speech, Dr Sant denied that there is a world oil crisis. He denied that the deficit is going down. His arguments were so solely based on the fiddling of various figures that the Prime Minister blew them away with one clean sweep using Dr Sant's own notorious but highly expressive Maltese word, tbazwir. He exposed Dr Sant's stratagem of undermining credibility not only in the government but in the country and its institutions.

All these denials come at a time when friend and foe of the government are admitting to the Prime Minister's success in tackling the announced number one priority. Most people are sitting back in admiration at the ability of Lawrence Gonzi to focus on a challenge and overcome it.

The reaction of the endemic economic Cassandras has taken one of two routes. Since they cannot deny the government's success, some are now shifting their attention to the national debt, knowing only too well that this debt will continue to increase as long as government expenditure is greater than government revenues, even if it is by a single lira.

However, there will come a time, not that far away, when with the proceeds of judicious privatisation and popularisation of public assets, such as the recent Malta International Airport shares issue, the public debt too will take a downward trend. It is already most encouraging and satisfying that this year recurrent revenue is to surpass recurrent expenditure by Lm69 million and in 2006 this figure will climb to Lm94 million.

Others, after harping for years on the essential prerequisite that the government lowers its deficit before any economic progress could be expected, once they cannot deny any longer this government's success, are now stating that this is no achievement at all. Real success is achieved if there is an upturn in economic activity.

Now they are not entirely wrong. The government has been giving its attention to economic growth against a background of a difficult international economic situation. But the government is not ready to achieve apparent momentary growth at the expense of restructuring.

Dr Sant has gone one better (or one worse) than these rose tinted, if not red coloured, Cassandras. He denied the success of the government's success at deficit cutting. If the figures show this result, then the figures have been fiddled with even if these have been certified by the EU and other international institutions.

One understands his Freudian slip. (I don't think there is such a term as a Freudian denial, is there?) We will not let anyone forget that this fresh, modern manager had made the deficit shoot up to unprecedented heights; to Lm129 million in 1997 and Lm153 million in 1998.

On the other hand, Dr Gonzi has shrunk it to Lm94 million in 2004, to Lm76 million in 2005 and is planning to decrease it further to Lm55 million next year, despite the oil crisis. From Dr Sant's 12 per cent of GDP to next year's Dr Gonzi's 2.8 per cent! Can anyone expect Dr Sant to come up with a credible answer in the face of such figures? He trusts that denials and old-style name-calling, such as calling the PM a liar, will keep the hard core behind him in his internal power struggle, even if they may lose him a few votes.

Dr Sant blamed Malta's entry in the EU for the difficulties Denim is facing. The fact is that globalisation would have hit us just the same had we remained outside. The problem is that Dr Sant clutches at every straw to prove himself right, when his acceptance of Malta's membership vindicates our championing of our vision. If anything, it proves how mistaken the Labour Party was to retain the leader who is totally identified with his persistent anti-EU position. A new man would have made it his mission to embrace the EU. He would not have to prove that he was not wrong.

Dr Deguara is Minister of Health